It's too easy to take the easy way out
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The trading deadline has passed, and if you're an NBA player unhappy, unfortunate or just mildly uncomfortable in your current surroundings, you should have learned a valuable lesson from the most recent transactions: Stop trying. It appears to be an effective way to get yourself out of your hard-luck situation.
Got practice? Sit out. Got an injury? Milk it. Got a chance to dive for a loose ball? Ha! Let it go out of bounds, Skippy.
The NBA is a funny place. When players sign contracts, teams actually expect the players to fulfill those contracts. That means playing on game nights and practicing on off-days. That also means teams can exercise their right to trade players. It's all written in the contracts, and teams assume players will abide by the contracts they sign.
Such assumptions are silly. As the past few months have shown, players have created a loophole, a way to stick it to the teams that signed them to big-money, long-term deals: They simply can roll back their effort. By not trying, by turning every bump, bruise and blister into a long-term injury, players can make themselves such nuisances that teams have no choice but to trade them.
It worked for
Baron Davis, who claimed a foot injury would keep him out for two weeks — until a trade to the
Warriors came up. Then, his injury miraculously healed. Not trying also worked for
Vince Carter, who sulked his way out of
Toronto and admitted he was dogging it.
Similarly,
Tracy McGrady admittedly backed off his effort in Orlando last year. Not trying worked for
Glenn Robinson, who did not want to play for coach Jim O'Brien in Philadelphia. It worked for
Alonzo Mourning, who simply never showed up in
Toronto, and for
Jim Jackson, who refused to report to
New Orleans.
...
That is a drain on the league. One key issue in the collective bargaining negotiations is the length of contracts. The league would like a maximum of five years rather than seven. But the real issue is not the length of contracts — it's getting players to give an honest effort throughout their contracts.
...
Either way, this problem has gotten out of hand, and it's hurting the image of the players as much as it is hurting the league — the players union should recognize that and work with the league to fix it. Most NBA players try. But, over the past few months, we've seen too many who didn't and got what they really wanted — a trade.
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/3445616
